Editorial
Sharon's lose-lose Mideast gamble

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For all the high drama of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's push to remove Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip, the link to long-term regional peace is tenuous at best.

Even as Sharon battles his Likud Party and religious zealots to relinquish occupied land, one can virtually see his grip tightening on the much larger occupied territory of the West Bank. Instead of a bold stroke toward a Palestinian state, Sharon undercuts any notion of an autonomous, contiguous homeland for Palestinians and provokes the worst instincts at home.

The prime minister won a crucial, initial test earlier this week, but the disengagement plan faces other votes on compensation for the settlers and the money to pay them in the 2005 budget. Four members of the Cabinet, including Finance Minister Benjamin Netan-yahu, threatened to resign in 14 days without a national referendum.

Sharon is the modern godfather of settlements. By pursuing phased evacuations, each of which would require a vote, he seems to be playing against type. The bet, however, is the unilateral removal of 8,800 settlers from the expensive-to-defend Gaza Strip will preclude the larger issue of relocating 230,000 settlers from the West Bank.

The Palestinians, with or without a seriously ill Yasser Arafat, carry the burden of demonstrating they will confront murderous extremists in their midst, end corruption and run a credible government.

But the dream of nation-building is dimmed by the prospects of negotiating around Israeli settlements and ceding control of border crossings, coastline and airspace to a muscular neighbor who retains the right to re-enter at any time.

The same zeal that murdered Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin has stirred a "promise to change the tone and style of the anti-disengagement struggle," said a quote in the newspaper Haaretz. One sign noted, "a political assassin would be blessed."

Beyond the zealots, public opinion polls find Sharon's calculated move is broadly popular in Israel. The false hope is that a meager ration of land will bring security, and peace with Palestinians.